1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a curl straightening method for image receiving paper for sublimation dye transfer printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a sublimation dye transfer printer, image receiving paper formed by bonding a conventional paper and a plastic film and having a thickness equal to or more than 200 micrometers is used for realizing quality of feeling like a photograph. The problem with such image receiving paper is that curl remains very often because it is bonded with the film and supplied in a state of a roll.
As a technology to straighten such curl of the roll paper, a technology to press a part of the roll paper and bend it in the reverse direction of the curl, while pulling out the roll paper and applying tensile force thereto, is proposed (for example, see Publication of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 5-51665, JP-A No. 5-51846, JP-A No. 7-247045, JP-A No. 8-2766, and JP-A No. 8-32748).
However, the curl is difficult to be straightened because the above described image receiving paper essentially has high stiffness so that a wrinkle occurs when the curl is forced to be eliminated.
On this account, when such image receiving paper is formed in a roll form, it is necessary to make the diameter of the roll core as large as possible in a range where the curl is not problematic, and as a result, the diameter of the roll paper becomes large and the problems of downsizing of the printer and handling of the image receiving paper arises.
When the core diameter of the image receiving paper is made smaller in order to deal with the above described problems, the curl of the image receiving paper becomes significantly stronger toward the roll core to bring the curl of the output printed matter strong, and therefore, the problem that the entire image is difficult and skewed to be seen arises. In addition, there is another problem that the image receiving paper is difficult to be mounted when mounted on the board. Further, there is yet another problem that the image receiving paper is difficult to be held by being stacked when massively printed. Furthermore, the problem that, when trying to straighten the curl by rolling it in the reverse direction by hand, the curl can not be straightened more than expected, and a wrinkle occurs on the image surface due to application of strong force arises.
The invention is achieved in light of these problems, and objected to provide a curl straightening method for image receiving paper for sublimation dye transfer, which enables to realize a smaller diameter of the roll core of the roll paper, contribute to downsizing of the rolled image receiving paper and accordingly, to downsizing of the printer, and obtain printed matter with good image quality and handling without residual curl after printing.